Time

Whether we wake or we sleep,
Whether we carol or weep,
The Sun with his Planets in chime,
Marketh the going of Time.
~Edward Fitzgerald

Anyone can

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means.
--Robert Louis Stevenson

Feast of Saint Thomas of Canterbury

"For the Name of Jesus and the protection of the Church I am ready to embrace death."

--dying words of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, also known as Saint Thomas (a) Becket.

Saint Thomas, pray for us.

Feast of the Holy Innocents

Sweet flow’rets of the martyr band,
So early plucked by cruel hand;
Like rosebuds by a tempest torn,
As breaks the light of summer morn.
First victims offered for the Lord,
Ye little knew your high reward,
As, at the very altar, gay
With palms and crowns ye seemed to play.
Ah! what availed King Herod’s wrath?
He could not stay your Savior’s path;
The Child he sought alone went free;
That Child is King eternally.
O Lord, the virgin born, to Thee
Praise, honor, might and glory be,
Whom with the Father we adore
And Holy Ghost forevermore.

--Aurelius Prudentius (348-413); translated by Henry W. Baker.

All you Holy Innocents, pray for us. 

Feast of Saint John

Deus caritas est.

(God is Love.)

--First Letter of Saint John, 4,16.
Saint John, pray for us.

Feast of Saint Stephen

"But the victim of love does not suffer as one suffers who has not given everything. The two are as different as day and night. The victim will always be Love's privileged one. If only you knew the joy with which Jesus fills everything we we have given Him everything!"

--Pere Jean de Coeur de Jesus D'Elbee

Saint Stephen, pray for us.

(Happy feast day, Stephen!)

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world’s desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary’s knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.
--Gilbert Keith Chesterton 


(A blessed Christmastide to you all, dear readers. I thank you for all of your lovely comments and well-wishes and, most especially, for your prayers. And I pray that Almighty God will richly bless you and your dear ones during these twelve joyful days in which we celebrate Our Blessed Savior's holy birth. May Our Lady be near you throughout this sacred season.--KS)

The sleep of sickness

The sleep of sickness is different
from the sleep of health.
It does not refresh
nor restore, but helps us
to endure the weighty pain
which illness brings.
And all that we would do,
were we not ill, is forgotten
in the drowsy spell
of deep and dream-tossed sleep.
How gladly we'd awake
to take our places in the world!
How long must we be patient?
No one can tell. Yet,
such slumber serves to show
what a gift it is to be well.
--Kindred Spirit


(My apologies for my absence, dear readers, but I have been under the influence of a particularly virulent form of influenza. Thanks be to God, it appears that I am on the mend. I send my best wishes to you all, and ask you to pray for my speedy recovery. May Almighty God bless you and Our Lady protect you.) 

God is awake

 

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
--Victor Hugo

Days

"What very mysterious things days are. Sometimes they fly by, and other times they seem to last forever, yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours. There's quite a lot we don't know about them."

--Melanie Benjamin

Disappointment

"Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it." 

--Eliza Tabor

Words

Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.

--Mother Teresa

Best gifts

“To be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness - these are the gifts which money cannot buy.”

--Robert Louis Stevenson

Transformation

"In the transformation of the soul in God, it is God who communicates Himself with admirable glory. In this transformation, the two become one, as we would say of the window united with the ray of sunlight, or of the coal with the fire, or of the starlight with the light of the Sun."
--Saint John of the Cross

Feast of Saint Lucy

We walk by faith, not by sight.
--2 Corinthians 5,7.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Gaudete Sunday

The art of life consists in taking each event which befalls us with a contented mind, confident of good. ... With this method ... rejoice always, though in the midst of sorrows, and possess all things, though destitute of everything.
--James Freeman Clarke

The road of life

“It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.”

--Helen Keller

Moments

"There are moments in life when the heart is so full of emotion

That, if by chance, it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble

Drops some careless word, it overflows; and its secret,

Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together."

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Secret sorrows

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

 

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

"Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou."
--words of Our Lady to Saint Bernadette at Lourdes.
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

I Heard a Bird SIng

"I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

'We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,'
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December."--Oliver Herford, I Heard a Bird Sing

Feast of Saint Nicholas

“Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made.”

 

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Saint Nicholas, pray for us.

Prayer

"The Creator of the Universe listens to the prayer of a very little soul to save others who are ransomed, as she is, by the price of all His Blood."
--Saint Therese of Lisieux

The pain of parting

“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.”

 

 --Charles Dickens

The simple truth

“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.”

 

--Charles Dickens

Beauty

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."

--Kahlil Gibran

Feast of Saint Edmund Campion

The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God,

it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted; 

so it must be restored.

--Saint Edmund Campion, martyred at Tyburn on December 1, 1581 at age 41.

Saint Edmund Campion, pray for us. 

Feast of Saint Andrew

"Rejoice, O Isaiah, and receive the Word of God.
Prophesy to Mary the Maiden.
She is the Burning Bush unconsumed by the fire of divinity." 
Adorn yourself, O Bethlehem.
Enter, O Magi, and see salvation swaddled in a crib.
Behold the star shining above the cave;
It announces the life-giving Lord who saves the human race.

Tell us, O Joseph, how you led the Virgin
Into the Bethlehem cave.
'After searching the scriptures and hearing the angel', he says,
'I am certain that Mary will wondrously give birth to God
Whom the wise men from the East will worship,
Offering to him their precious gifts'.

[Hymns from Vespers for the Feast of Saint Andrew]

Heavenward

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.”

--Oliver Wendell Holmes

First Sunday in Advent

 See! The ruler of the earth shall come,
the Lord who will take from us the heavy burden of our exile.
The Lord will come soon, will not delay.
The Lord will make the darkest places bright.
--from a monastic liturgy

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal

"I did not know where I was.  I experienced an almost total change...I tried to find myself and could not...The greatest joy burst from the depths of my soul; I could not speak...I could not account for the faith and awareness that I had acquired.  All that I could say is that in the moment of this phenomenon, the band fell from my eyes; and not one band, but a whole collection of them, and they disappeared rapidly, one after the other, as snow, mud and ice disappear under the influence of the burning sun."
--Alphonse Ratisbonne upon his miraculous conversion.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

November

Not yesterday I learned to know
    The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
    And they are better for her praise.
--from My November Guest by Robert Frost 

Thanks

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

--G.K. Chesterton

(I am grateful for each and every one of you, dear readers. May this Thanksgiving Day be a happy and peaceful one for you all, and may Almighty God richly bless you and your dear ones.) 

The road

That is the road we all have to take--over the Bridge of Sighs into eternity.
--Soren Kierkegaard

Never cease loving

“Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.”

--Soren Kierkegaard

Feast of Saint Cecilia

For music, I must think, was given

To be of higher life a token,

The language by the angels spoken,

The native tongue of heaven!

--Christopher Pearse Cranch in "The Music of Nature" 

 

Saint Cecilia, pray for us. 

Forgiveness

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

--Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Dream

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

--C. S. Lewis

Speak to me of love

Speak to me of love, said St Francis to the almond tree, and the tree blossomed.
--Nicholas Kazantzakis

One red leaf

The one red leaf, the last of its clan,

That dances as often as dance it can, 

Hanging so light, and hanging so high, 

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
--Melodie Beattie

Victory

They always win who side with God.
--Rev. Frederick Faber

The happiness of life

“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions-the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heart-felt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.”

--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Love

Love was meant to be also a sign, a symbol, a messenger, a telltale of the Divine. Love is a messenger from God saying that every human affection and and every ecstasy of love are sparks from the great flame of love that is God.
--Bishop Fulton Sheen

The glory of friendship

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Risk

To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
--Author Unknown

Forgiveness

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness. 

--William Blake

Dear friend

--But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.
--William Shakespeare

Thank You

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Dinner of Herbs

"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."

--Proverbs